Gruden is all over us in the press. The way he keeps talking up how good we are makes me nervous, he has done his work unlike the Lions. Turner is gonna find it tough going IMO. I hope they dont shut our run down but im not liking our chances. Lets hope im proven wrong.

IMO this game will come down to how well Matt Ryan plays, if/when they force us to pass-and if we can pass well, then the running game will be opened up again instead of 350 guys in the box each play. I think we will have to show our improvement in the run AND the pass to have a shot this weekend, just hope Matt's ready

A lot of it will depend on our WRs too. If they are stacking the box, the Ryan needs to recognize the single coverage our WRs are getting. Our WRs need to bail him out by running great routes and finding a hole in the zone. If Ryan stays composed, Roddy could have a big game.

__________________"He's the leader of the next great class of NFL players." - John Elway on Matt Ryan

Gruden is all over us in the press. The way he keeps talking up how good we are makes me nervous, he has done his work unlike the Lions. Turner is gonna find it tough going IMO. I hope they dont shut our run down but im not liking our chances. Lets hope im proven wrong.

IMO this game will come down to how well Matt Ryan plays, if/when they force us to pass-and if we can pass well, then the running game will be opened up again instead of 350 guys in the box each play. I think we will have to show our improvement in the run AND the pass to have a shot this weekend, just hope Matt's ready

I think he might love Abraham as much as I do. He hypes him up every single time we play.

i just hope and pray that Abe will be healthy, and we can get pressure from someone else other then him. What we need to do to win this game though is stop the run and knock down their jouneyman as much as we can.

Honestly, if Abraham gos down this year our defense is in bad shape considering we don't blitz and none of our other defensive lineman get a consistent pass rush.

Bingo. We played supervanilla last week. Maybe it's because we were in cruise-control, but it was very plain. Boley's gotta be rushing more. Look what he did to Peyton Manning. Abraham is an elite pass rusher though. I predicted a huge year, and I'm thinking we get it from him. That core training really seems to have helped him out. According to the team website he's at 265 too. Normally he'd play at 250-256.

Bingo. We played supervanilla last week. Maybe it's because we were in cruise-control, but it was very plain. Boley's gotta be rushing more. Look what he did to Peyton Manning. Abraham is an elite pass rusher though. I predicted a huge year, and I'm thinking we get it from him. That core training really seems to have helped him out. According to the team website he's at 265 too. Normally he'd play at 250-256.

he was listed at 258 for a long time and now this year it's 266. There are a lot of other guys whos listed weight has changed significantly. Just to name some of the most important guys:

i edited it now, its a little more clear. Anyway, I agree... i dont know if i like Boley at that weight. When he was 235- 240, he did a nice job covering TEs and RBs so him being listed at 223 is low for a LBer and a player his height. Milloy is at 218 now, heck thats only 5 pounds less then our SLBer and he's a safety. I like him at that weight, i want the RBs to feel it when they get hit by him, and he's been doing a great job of doing that this year.

On the football note, you can expect Tampa to put a lot in the box and try to stop the run. I hope Matt Ryan can find him more often this week even with the kind of DBs tampa has. I say Matt Ryan's second career TD pass will be caught by Roddy White this week.

Ok time to show we can play well against a good team. This game will be huge. A win here will prove so much, the haters cant say "oh come on it was the lions" any more. On top of that, we will find where we stand and if we can compete for the playoffs.

Ok time to show we can play well against a good team. This game will be huge. A win here will prove so much, the haters cant say "oh come on it was the lions" any more. On top of that, we will find where we stand and if we can compete for the playoffs.

Going into the game the Lions were a playoff team, they lost to us and now it's the 'lowly Lions' so it took away what should have been a nice victory for us, but it doesn't much matter at this point, if we beat the Bucs it will be the same song and dance, we're going to have to be undefeated through week 4 for someone to finally say that the Falcons are a solid team. It's unlikely, but anything is possible I guess.

Going into the game the Lions were a playoff team, they lost to us and now it's the 'lowly Lions' so it took away what should have been a nice victory for us, but it doesn't much matter at this point, if we beat the Bucs it will be the same song and dance, we're going to have to be undefeated through week 4 for someone to finally say that the Falcons are a solid team. It's unlikely, but anything is possible I guess.

exactly what i was about to say. if we come out with a win, it would be cause 'griese was starting' or some other bs like that. at least we dont have targets on our back and pressure is pretty low.